Two years ago at Le Bourget, executives from Air France and leading maintenance, repair and overhaul specialist Lufthansa Technik signed an agreement that brought into being a company called Spairliners. With just two employees, it’s probably the smallest enterprise of its kind in the industry – but it aims to pack a big punch when it comes to providing spares for the Airbus A380.
Hamburg-based chief executive Jean-Luc Fattelay and chief financial officer Georg Fanta head a lean team of about a dozen people seconded from the two parent companies. Their mission, says Fattelay, is to provide Air France, Lufthansa and as many other A380 operators as they can sign up with the component support they need to keep their aircraft flying and earning.
Though they will stop short of major structural components, engines and landing gear, the scale of the task is impressive – 1,100 different part numbers and enough stockholding initially to support 50-55 aircraft. “Our aim is not to do everything but to concentrate on those components, like fuel pumps and avionics, that are likely to create operational problems,” says Fattelay.
To do that, the company is establishing a central pool of components along with holdings in two or three key regions and airline main bases and outstations. Failed or time-expired components will be exchanged one-for-one, passed back to the Air France and Lufthansa Technik MRO centres and then returned to the pool for subsequent use.
“We are offering a warranty to customers, saying we will do everything to ensure their aircraft depart on time,” says Fattelay. By “everything” he means sourcing parts not only from the company’s own stocks but also if necessary from other airlines and even the airframe manufacturers.
The key to managing this global flow of components is an IT infrastructure commissioned earlier this year to handle all the company’s business processes, from materials and repairs management and purchasing of components to financial reporting.
Based on the latest SAP software, the de facto standard for aviation spares databases, it communicates with partner systems by modern web services technology and offers a user-friendly Web front end for communications with customers.
Spairliners will negotiate a tariff with each customer and then bear the risk of delivering against the guarantee. The customer will pay the company on a power-by-the-hour basis, receiving monthly invoices, while Spairliners itself will pay the parent companies for the services they perform – repairs, overhauls and logistics.
Going well
After months of hurry up and wait as a result of the A380 production delays, Spairliners is now in serious negotiations to add other customers to its initial guaranteed base of Air France and Lufthansa. “Discussions are going well in southeast Asia,” says Fattelay. “The party involved is more than a prospect – negotiations are more advanced than that.”
He is circumspect about the identity of the potential customer, but says: “We think we could help Singapore Airlines with a smooth start-up of its A380 operations. Its launch route will be Singapore-Heathrow, and through Air France Industries we’re well placed in London, where it supports Virgin, MyTravel and Monarch.”
As it builds towards its 55-aircraft target Spairliners can expect stiff competition from at least one source. At the beginning of last year Qantas, which has 20 A380s on order, and SR Technics (Hall 5,A18) of Switzerland entered into a non-binding co-operation agreement covering component support. Though the venture’s guaranteed fleet, and thus the benefits of scale, are a little smaller than those of Spairliners, the partnership is likely to represent stiff competition for the European company.
Source: Flight Daily News
